Phoenix, Rising...
by Martin D. Pay
Summary: Sequel to 'Aftershock'... Nene's in Osaka; but what did she find there and will she return to MegaTokyo


** Phoenix, Rising **  
  
  
* Part One *  
  
Her eyes jerked open to the sound of soft sobbing. Tears stained her pillow, and she realised that the sound was her own; her face was still wet. She was soaked in a cold, clammy sweat that chilled her body and left her uncomfortably stuck to the bed-covers. Visions of fire and blood danced at the edges of her memory; and although the ghostly images slowly receded as her head cleared, the almost indefinable sense of loss that succeeded them remained to taunt her.  
  
She glanced at the clock on the bedside cabinet and almost cursed; the balefully glowing red figures showed 2.30am. She sighed inaudibly and after a moment's hesitation slid awkwardly out of bed, trying not to disturb her companion, and padded softly into the shower.  
  
Fifteen minutes later she was back, refreshed and with still-damp hair, ready to try and regain her interrupted sleep. About to slide carefully back under the covers she realised that her attempts at stealth had been to no avail; the bed had been restored in her absence and the damp sheets replaced with clean ones. A pair of blue-grey eyes gleamed up at her in the darkness.  
  
"Oh, Toshi, I'm sorry. I tried not to wake you... " She crawled back under the covers and snuggled up to him.  
  
"It's OK, Nene. Bad dream?" He smoothed a rebellious lock of hair from her eyes, then put his arm round her shoulders and pulled her in tighter to his side.  
  
"Umm..." She sighed, and laid her hand on his chest; he hugged her quickly then trailed a hand lazily down her back, making her suddenly shiver.  
  
He chuckled, then. "You'd better try and get back to sleep, love. You'll be impossible in the morning if you don't get your eight hours - "  
  
"Oh, you - !" She punched him none too gently in the ribs with a balled fist, then yawned. "Hmph! I hate it when you're right, y'know..."  
  
He tipped her face up and kissed her quickly and she responded enthusiastically for a moment before twisting slightly to settle herself easily into the crook of his shoulder, enjoying the comfortable feeling of his arms around her. His breathing quickly slipped into the slow rhythm of deep sleep, and she found herself envying - not for the first time - his cat-like ability to drop effortlessly in and out of the arms of Morpheus.  
  
The measured, gentle sound relaxed her and she found herself nodding, eyes closing on the pale glow of the street-lights that shone through a chink in the curtains and on the glowing red numerals on the clockface by the bed.  
  
* * * * *  
  
"Let's go, Love! Up and at 'em!" Toshi yanked the duvet off the bed; Nene squealed in outrage, made a desperate grab for the receding covers, missed, and resorted to glaring ferociously at him. He leered happily and pantomimed a lecherous grab at her naked body; she struggled for a moment to keep a straight face then burst into a fit of giggles.  
  
"You *are* good for me, Toshi! I never used to be able to laugh, first thing in the morning... " She stretched toward him invitingly, giving him a look from under lowered lashes that made his heart suddenly pound, then sat up.  
  
He smiled at her. "Get dressed, love. It's late! Breakfast?"  
  
"Coffee!"  
  
Toshi wandered off into the kitchen; by the time Nene had finished dressing he had brewed the coffee and set a mug on the coaster at her place at the table.  
  
She sipped at it happily, eyes blissfully closed. "You make the best coffee in the *world*! Sylia would love this... "  
  
"Sylia?" He stared at her. "She's 'phoned us here a few times, hasn't she? I've heard her on the answerphone... " He paused, wondering how blunt he could be without upsetting his lover, then shrugged mentally. "Who *is* she, Nene? She's very persistent... "  
  
"Oh... ah," she stammered, caught off-guard. "A friend, back in MegaTokyo." Her tone grew suddenly wistful. "I haven't... " Then she shook her head briskly, setting her flame-red hair tumbling round her shoulders. "Ah well... So, what have we got on for today?"  
  
He smiled a little sadly, tacitly accepting the abrupt change of subject but silently wishing that she could feel able to entrust him with even a little of her past. He loved her dearly, told her so often, and he hated to see the pain that sometimes flared in her eyes when she remembered something from her previous life. He knew hardly anything about her life before her arrival in Osaka nine months earlier, except that she had served in the ADPolice, and he often wondered what had made so reticent, so... careful... about everything she said.  
  
"Well, I've got to meet some people uptown - there may be a nice little job for us. And *you* - " he grinned maliciously " - have got to go and renew your driver's permit. It wouldn't be at all good for our image if you get a ticket while you're puttering around on that two-wheeled toy of yours!"  
  
She grimaced, then. "Ugh! Standing in line half the day at City Hall!" Then she looked up hopefully. "If you're going uptown too, maybe we can meet for lunch?"  
  
"Good idea. I'll see you at... oh, one o'clock outside the DMV, OK?"  
  
"Great!" She put her mug down. "Oh, well, I suppose I'd better get going. I just *know* what the queues will be like... "  
  
* * * * *  
  
By the time one o'clock came round, and then one-thirty, Nene was in a distinctly sour mood. Standing in line all morning at the DMV had left her with sore feet and, thanks to the person in front of her in the line, a new aversion to strong curry...  
  
And to cap it all, Toshi was late as well. She walked across to the low wall that surrounded the ornamental fountains in the centre of the plaza to rest her aching ankles while scanning the passing lunchtime crowds for her partner. Her stomach growled and she began to seriously regret not stopping to eat breakfast. That was the trouble with most of Toshi's meetings; he allowed little things to distract him from the major points of business, and everything had a tendency to take much longer than necessary.  
  
She looked at her watch again; 1.45. She resolved to give him until two o'clock before abandoning her vigil and go for something to eat without him.  
  
"Nene?  
  
The familiar voice interrupted her musing and she looked up, momentarily confused by a sudden incongruity between voice and setting. She turned, searching -   
  
"It is you! How - "  
  
"*Sylia*?" Then she saw the tall, elegant figure of the woman she had once regarded as her closest confidante, perhaps even her closest friend, standing only a few feet away round the circumference of the fountain's bowl, unexpected delight showing clearly in her face.  
  
Nene stood up then hesitated, self-conscious and embarrassed. She was suddenly all too aware of the abrupt manner in which she had answered Sylia's e-mails over the past months (when she had answered them at all) and of how she had avoided responding to her friend's telephone calls. She was also keenly aware that her answers to Sylia's enquiries about the possibility of her return to MegaTokyo had consisted entirely of prevarication and delay; half-promises to go back at some nebulous and undefined time in the future.  
  
Sylia clearly sensed the younger girl's dismay and started to cross the space between them herself. Nene still hesitated, then flushed and looked down; a moment later and Sylia was standing beside her. Nene choked back a tear and sniffled.  
  
"Oh, Sylia, I'm so sorry... " She dashed a hand across her eyes, attempted a smile. "It's wonderful to see you. But what on earth are you doing in Osaka?"  
  
Sylia laughed gently, the discrete murmur that Nene remembered so well; a sudden joy jumped in the redhead's heart.  
  
"Two things, actually. The first is business - 'Ladys' is doing so well that I'm scouting a likely property to open a branch here in Osaka." She chuckled. "I'm actually in danger of earning more this year from... well, shall I say, my legitimate ventures, than from our other activities. *Those* sorts of jobs have been rather scarce lately - no-one seems to need our particular skills at the moment." She stepped back and subjected Nene to a searching scrutiny. "And the second reason is you, of course. How *are* you? You certainly *look* well... "  
  
Nene sniffed back another tear. "I'm fine. Working, too. It was hard at first, but... " She shrugged her shoulders. "I never expected starting over to be easy."  
  
Then her stomach growled again, and she coloured, embarrassed. "*Excuse* me!"  
  
Sylia smiled. "Let me guess - no lunch yet? Well, I haven't eaten either. Please, come back to my hotel and we'll have lunch together, my treat. I'd really like to talk to you... "  
  
Nene smiled doubtfully. "That's very kind, Sylia, but actually I'm waiting - "  
  
"Nene! There you are!" Toshi appeared at a run, breathing heavily with exertion. "I'm sorry, I got held up... "  
  
He grabbed Nene round the waist before she could say anything, swung her round, and kissed her vigorously - to the disbelief of Sylia, who barely managed to keep her jaw from dropping open in utter amazement.  
  
Then Toshi became aware of their audience. "Oops! Nene?"  
  
Nene was blushing furiously. "Toshi! Honestly! This is my friend Sylia. Sylia, Hitoshi Kamazawa... "  
  
Toshi bowed formally while trying to avoid staring at the subject of that morning's aborted conversation with Nene. "I'm very pleased to meet you."  
  
Sylia smiled. "Likewise, I'm sure." She turned to Nene. "If you're busy for lunch, we can meet later... "  
  
Nene hesitated, hearing the unspoken promise that she would not be allowed to evade Sylia's questions this time, and darted a glance at Toshi.  
  
He grinned. "Go ahead, love. It's not every day that you get to meet an unexpected old friend. I'll grab some ramen and head back to the office." He kissed her quickly. "Have fun. See you later!" He grinned. "Don't eat too much! Remember, we've got a workout planned this evening... "  
  
* * * * *  
  
"That was *good*!" It's been a long time... " Nene surveyed the debris remaining on the table and sighed wistfully.  
  
"Oh? You always used to say that restaurants were your only vice!"  
  
Nene smiled ruefully. "To be honest, we can't really afford to do this sort of thing very often."  
  
Sylia raised an eyebrow. "You surprise me. I would have thought that money would be the least of your problems."  
  
Nene grimaced. "Well, I never used to *worry* about money, if that's what you mean. Yes, I had a regular salary from the ADPolice as well as our 'extra' earnings, and I never used to spend it like... well, like Linna, for example. But you must know I was putting most of it into a retirement fund... " She grinned. "I'll be able to quit work a lot earlier than Linna will... It took most of my liquid capital to move here and start up the business." She laughed, a little embarrassed. " But enough, already. How are *you*, and the others?"  
  
Sylia put down her coffee cup and dabbed at her lips with a napkin. "I'm fine. As I said earlier, business is good - I wasn't joking about opening a branch of 'Ladys' here, you know. That's why I was at City Hall this morning - property searches and so on... "  
  
Nene grinned happily. "That's wonderful! You always did have a better head for business than the rest of us." She giggled. "I often thought that Priss would have done better if you'd been her manager... "  
  
Sylia chuckled. "I don't think we'd have managed to stay friends, in that case." She reached into her purse and pulled out a small package. "But that reminds me - I've got something for you... " She handed the parcel to Nene, a small smile on her face. "I hope you don't think it presumptuous of me... "  
  
Nene took the parcel, clearly bemused. "A present! Thank you... " She looked up. "But I don't believe you knew I'd be at City Hall this morning... "  
  
Sylia leaned back. "I didn't; that was pure luck. I'd planned to get in touch this evening and make arrangements to see you then." She smiled slightly. "When I decided to expand the business, the fact that you're here did play a part in my decision to open 'Ladys2' in Osaka." She paused, frowning, searching for the right words. "I haven't been very happy at the way you've been... well, avoiding me; but as I said, things have been quiet. I said when you came here that I'd respect your decision - and your privacy. And I've done so. I've not told anyone else that you're here. Yet. But nine months is a long time for a holiday, and there are some things... " She shook her head. "Well, perhaps later for those... "  
  
Nene looked troubled, but then bowed her head in acknowledgement. "I'm sorry. I should have gotten in touch with you sooner, shouldn't I? At least I could have answered your mail properly." She sniffed as tears welled in her eyes. "I'm *glad* you came... Really." Then she brightened. "But I haven't opened this... " She tore open the wrapping paper then stopped, amazed. "I... I never realised," she whispered.  
  
The parcel contained a single CD, the pro debut for which Priss had worked so hard, so long.  
  
"You should read the liner notes," said Sylia gently.  
  
"Hmm? Oh... " She flipped open the case, pulled out the insert and opened it; stared at it for a long moment while tears trickled down her cheeks. "Oh, Sylia... "  
  
'For Sylia, Linna and Nene - my friends, who stood by me when the chips were down'  
  
"I... I really screwed up, didn't I? How could Priss bear to write that, after what I've done?" A burst of sobs wracked the girl's body and she slumped forward, head in her hands.  
  
Sylia reached over and put a compassionate hand on her arm. "I understand what you were going through, Nene, perhaps better than you realise. And so do Priss, and Linna. We've *all* felt that we had to get away at one time or another, even me. *Especially* me. Although I have to admit that I didn't expect you to be gone this long... " She leaned back and lit a cigarette. "But you certainly seem to have come through everything with flying colours... " A mischievous smile flickered across her face. "Just who *is* Kamazawa-san, anyway?" She grinned slyly. "And did I hear him say you were going to work out, later?"  
  
"Ah... " Nene blushed and looked down. "I was just starting out as a software consultant, he was a hardware specialist who was my first client. Or I was his - I'm not really sure any more... " She smiled dreamily. "We just really hit it off right from the start, so to speak, and... well, one thing sort of led to another... " She laughed. "And yes, I'm working out. I actually started to miss Linna's classes, would you believe, and Toshi's a qualified judo instructor... "  
  
"I see!" Sylia smiled, eyes merry. "I'm happy for you, truly I am. But we do miss you, you know."  
  
"I didn't realise just how much I've missed all of you, until now," admitted Nene. "But look, you didn't answer my question. You're obviously doing well, and Priss has finally got her shot at the big-time, but what about Linna?" She paused, discomfort suddenly clearly visible on her face. "And Mackie?"  
  
Sylia smiled. "Linna's changed jobs *again*, to Sumitomo this time, dealing on the exchange. Not quite as successfully as when you were feeding her tips, but she doesn't have to worry about the cost of new clothes any more." She sighed, then. "As for Mackie... He was very hurt when you left. You know how... fond... he was of you."  
  
Nene looked troubled. "That was the hardest part of deciding to leave like that. But I *had* to get away, and staying in touch with Mackie would have made that impossible. He's too close to you... " She looked away. "I never wanted to hurt him, Sylia. Or any of you. You know I didn't."  
  
"Of course I do, Nene." She paused, eyes sad. "I'm afraid Mackie hasn't had much of a life in many ways - my father's obsessions haven't done any of us any favours."  
  
"I should come back and apologise. To everyone."  
  
"Well, we'd all love to see you again - and meet Kamazawa-san as well, of course. Priss and Linna have been very worried about you, and so has Inspector McNicol. I know they'd all appreciate hearing from you." She paused, a smile now on her face. "And frankly, I don't think I can take any more of Priss' particularly aggressive style of questioning. Not that Linna's any less persistent; she's just more subtle... "  
  
"Umm... Yes, I *will* come back," replied Nene, a sudden determination in her voice. "I'd really like to see everyone again."  
  
"I'm pleased to hear you say that," said Sylia. "As I said, I never expected you to stay away this long. The Knight Sabers aren't the same without you... "  
  
Nene grinned at that. "Huh... I'm sure Priss would be only too pleased to have 'Little Miss Cyberpunk' back again. She must hate not having anyone to push around!"  
  
"If you don't want to stay in a hotel, you're welcome to come and stay with me," said Sylia. "Both of you, of course. You know I've got plenty of room... "  
  
"Thank you. I think we'd like that." She checked her wristwatch. "Oh, goodness, look at the time! I ought to go - Toshi will be wondering where on earth I've got to!" She stood and bowed to her hostess. "Thank you, Sylia, for all this - " she waved vaguely at the remains of their meal, " - and for... well, for *caring*."  
  
Sylia smiled. "You're welcome. And I've *always* cared, you know. Even if it often seemed that I didn't. So, do come and see us. Soon!"  
  
* * * * *  
  
"Hello, love. Have a good time?" Toshi swung his bare feet off the settee, got to his feet and hugged Nene as she entered the room.  
  
"Yes." She kissed him. "Thanks for understanding." She took off her jacket and threw it over the back of a chair. "We've got an open invitation to go and stay with Sylia. How'd you like to visit MegaTokyo?"  
  
"Great! I haven't been there in - oh, it must be four years." He grinned reminiscently. "I remember this little hostess place just behind the Imperial Palace... "  
  
"Oh, no! No bars! I can't cope with you when you're drunk!"  
  
He adopted a wounded expression. "How can you say that? I'm the very model of decorum... "  
  
"Hah!" But she kissed him anyway. "Now, what about your meeting this morning?"  
  
He smiled. "Good news, I think. We've been asked to put in a tender for a complete security survey on some corporate big-shot's estate." He chuckled. "I got the feeling that he doesn't trust his own people to do the job properly - he seems completely paranoid! I think we're supposed to keep them on their toes... "  
  
Nene grinned at him. "I *like* people who feel unsafe. Especially if they want to hire us to make them feel better! So - when do they want us, and for how long?  
  
"As soon as possible, and for about a week if the brief they showed me is anything to go by."  
  
"Wonderful!" She crossed to the calendar hanging by the telephone and studied it briefly. "It's Obon in ten days - how about we go visit Sylia straight afterwards?"  
  
"Sounds good to me, love. We're due a holiday, and this would be a nice way to take it... "  
  
"That's settled, then. I'll let Sylia know we're coming... "  
  
"Fine." He smiled at her. "Now, are you ready for your workout? You'll be able to graduate to the next rank soon, if you keep at it."  
  
"I guess." She grinned. "Y'know, if any of my friends in the ADPolice could see me taking judo lessons, they'd never believe it. I suppose I used to be rather lazy... " She grin turned rather sly. "But training with you, even when the workout's not much fun, the showering afterwards *always* is... "  
  
* * * * *  
  
* Part Two *  
  
Nene yawned, stretched carefully to remove the kinks in her spine and turned to grin at Toshi. He returned her look with a smile of his own, then stood as the train slid to a graceful halt in MegaTokyo Station. She slung her shoulder-bag over one arm as Toshi picked up their suitcases and together the couple stepped onto the platform to do battle with the seething hordes of commuters travelling home for the evening.  
  
"Now, can you see - ah!" Toshi spotted the sign for the taxi rank and gestured to Nene with a jerk of his head. "Over that way, love... "  
  
The queue of taxis waiting for fares was moving at a rapid pace and it was a matter of only a few minutes before they were safely ensconced in one of the vehicles. Nene gave the driver the 'Ladys 633' address and leaned back into Toshi's arms, a vaguely worried look clouding her face.  
  
"What's the problem, Nene?"  
  
She smiled up at him. "Oh, nothing, really. I suppose I just can't help wondering how the others will feel when I turn up again... I really did go off without a word to anyone, then or since. Sylia said that Priss and Linna and Leon were really worried about me... "  
  
"Well, if they were that concerned, hopefully they'll be pleased to see you're OK," he replied soothingly. Then he frowned. "Hey, who's this 'Leon' guy?"  
  
Nene chuckled. "Don't go getting all jealous on me! He was my boss at the ADPolice - Inspector Leon McNicol, Boomer Crimes Division. One of the 'good guys'... " She chuckled again, an impish grin on her face. "Even if he always was just a little too certain of his own irresistible appeal... "  
  
"Oh. OK... "  
  
The couple lapsed into a comfortable silence as the taxi battled its way through the traffic-choked streets. Nene stared eagerly out of the windows, taking in the familiar sights that she had not realised she missed so much; Toshi leaned back and closed his eyes, content for the present simply that Nene was happy. Since the unexpected meeting with Sylia in Osaka and their decision to visit MegaTokyo, a weight seemed to have lifted from his lover's shoulders. Nene was more... alive... than he had ever known her; and while he was genuinely happy for her he also found that he could not help worrying a little about how their relationship might be affected by this new development. He sighed inaudibly. He loved her, wanted to make her happy, and if that meant supporting her desire to revisit old friends he would do so willingly. Just as he would support her if, as he feared, her old terrors - and her old nightmares - resurfaced with her return to the capital and possibly therefore to the situations or people from which she had fled nine months before...  
  
After little more than half an hour the taxi pulled up outside 'Ladys 633'. Toshi paid the driver, wincing at the amount, then looked at the exclusive boutique, clearly bemused by what he saw.  
  
"What is it, Toshi?" Nene slipped her hand into his and he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze before replying.  
  
"I don't know. It's just... " He trailed off, clearly frustrated at his inability to articulate his sense of surprise. "I know you said that Sylia owns a boutique, but I thought you meant just a little place, y'know? This place is, well, sort of overwhelming... " He paused. "This looks like the sort of place where you don't ask the price because if you *need* to ask, you can't afford it! I didn't realise that you used to move in that sort of society... "  
  
Nene grinned at him. "I didn't, really. And the place didn't always look this grand!" She led him round the corner to a nondescript door set in an otherwise blank wall and pressed the buzzer on the intercom box.  
  
There was a short pause, then, "Stingray resi - Ah, hello, Nene. Come on up... " She released the door, which swung open. "Once you've put your luggage in the guest room and freshened up, come on through. I'm really looking forward to seeing you again."  
  
"'Kay. And... thanks." She led Toshi across the small lobby to the elevator; the car was already waiting for them, door open. Nene entered a code on the elevator's keypad and pressed the button for the penthouse level; the doors slid shut and the car rose soundlessly into the upper levels of the building. She smiled at Toshi, then. "You know, I was afraid I'd forgotten the elevator code for the penthouse... "  
  
"You mean Sylia actually *lives* over the shop?" said Toshi as the car slid to a halt. "I thought this was just a guest apartment."  
  
Nene giggled. "Oh yes, she lives here. But it's not... well, let's just say that I think you'll be surprised."  
  
The elevator door opened and the couple stepped out into the hallway that Nene remembered so well. The décor was unchanged, although she had a feeling that one of the prints hanging on the wall was new; a genuine Miyazaki, she thought wonderingly.  
  
"Ok, the guest suite is on the left," said Nene confidently. She opened the door and was pleased to see that the room was immediately welcoming; an exquisite ikebana display stood on the table and the sage-green curtains were closed against the encroaching darkness outside.  
  
"This is nice," said Toshi admiringly. "I'm glad we don't have to stay in a hotel!" He walked across to the wardrobe and put the suitcases on the floor. "I'd really like a shower, if your friend won't mind waiting for a few minutes?"  
  
"Good idea," replied Nene fervently. "I want to do the same. Trains leave me feeling sort of... icky, you know what I mean?"  
  
He grinned at her. "Yeah. Of course we could save time by showering together... "  
  
"Oh no! I know just what you're thinking - that won't *save* time at all, you lech!"  
  
"Spoilsport!" He pulled his washbag from one of the cases and disappeared into the bathroom.  
  
Nene sat down on the bed, suddenly tired. Despite the brave face that she had presented to Toshi, she admitted to herself that she was almost... scared. She had made her peace with Sylia before leaving MegaTokyo, and renewed that bond back in Osaka, but Priss, Linna and Mackie, not to mention Leon McNicol, were still to come. In particular she dreaded an encounter with Priss; the singer had a famously volatile temper and Nene was certain that she would be subjected to a torrent of (she admitted to herself) thoroughly deserved abuse when they finally met again. She sighed and started to unpack the cases, putting most of the contents in the wardrobe and chest-of-drawers but leaving their outfits for the evening on the bed.  
  
When Toshi emerged from the shower no more than ten minutes later Nene had recovered her good cheer sufficiently to give him a teasing smile as she undressed. He smiled back contentedly, and she thought as she often did just how lucky she was to have found him...  
  
By the time she came out of the shower, swathed in a massive towel and with a smaller one wrapped round her scarlet hair, Toshi had dressed and was watching a local news program on the television in the corner of the room. She was pleased to see that he had accepted the choice of clothes that she had laid out for him; noticing her gaze, he chuckled good-naturedly.  
  
"Well, I *could* have put on my out-at-the-knees jeans and that old 'T' with the arm torn off, but they'd be a bit out of place here, don't you think? I guess I'll go with the monkey-suit for the evening - I know you want me to make a good impression." He reached over to kiss her, sliding his hands under the all-concealing towel as he did so. "But no necktie!"  
  
She leaned into his kiss, smiling. "You look wonderful. Thank you for understanding... " Then she stepped back, pushing the exploring hands away. "Down, boy!" She giggled and readjusted the towel, which he had almost succeeded in removing from her body. "Be good and pass my hairdryer, would you? I look like a drowned rat at the moment... "  
  
He touched a finger to the tip of her nose and smiled. "But a very *pretty* drowned rat... "  
  
Fifteen minutes of vigorous towelling and blow-drying, and Nene felt ready to face the world again. She had given considerable thought to how she would present herself to Sylia; she felt a very real need to demonstrate that she was not the person that she had been when she left. Her final choice was a tailored trouser-suit in a deep bottle green over a blindingly white silk shirt; chic and sophisticated, an image of her quite unlike any that Sylia had previously seen. The only part of the outfit that she disliked was the high-heeled shoes necessary to properly set off the trousers.  
  
"Y'know, if Sylia wasn't expecting us for dinner I'd seriously think about ravishing you," said Toshi appreciatively. "I feel under-dressed without a necktie, now."  
  
"You look just fine, darling," she replied. "And I *do* like that shirt... " She giggled. "The blue really brings out the colour of your eyes... "  
  
"Then let's go! Sylia must be wondering where we've got to." He offered her his arm; she took it and they walked side-by-side down the long hallway to the double doors at the far end.  
  
Nene knocked firmly on the left-hand panel and opened the door without waiting for a response. Then she realised that the big room beyond was in darkness; puzzled, she stepped inside, Toshi only a step behind.  
  
"SURPRISE!" The chorus of voices and the accompanying flare of lights caught the couple completely unawares. Nene blinked furiously and rubbed at her eyes while Toshi raised his hands to his face as a shield.  
  
When her vision cleared, the first thing that Nene saw was the banner hung on the wall opposite the door:  
  
'WELCOME BACK NENE'  
  
in letters at least two feet high. Then she saw the people standing under the banner: Sylia, Priss, Linna, Leon McNicol, even Daley Wong and Naoko Hasegawa. But who was the elderly grey-haired man with the bushy moustache? She blinked again, eyes still watering...  
  
"Dr. Raven? But... where's your boilersuit?" she blurted out in amazement before realising what she had said; then she blushed bright crimson in embarrassment while the room erupted into gales of laughter.  
  
"Hmph! Just because I wear overalls in the garage doesn't mean that I don't have *some* other clothes, young lady," he growled in reply; though the grumbling tone was more than offset by the twinkle in his eyes and the grin on his lips.  
  
Then Nene was almost knocked off her feet as Linna and Priss swept her up in a joint embrace. She returned their hugs with enthusiasm, only half-hearing Linna's fervent welcome and Priss' growled threats about the likely penalties if she ran off again.  
  
Toshi meanwhile had retreated a little, a bemused expression on his face. He did not want to intrude on the joyous reunion of old friends, and he suddenly felt very much out of place.  
  
Sylia immediately spotted his uncertainty and crossed the floor to him. "Welcome, Kamazawa-san. It's very good to see you again."  
  
He bowed slightly. "Thank you. I'm - *we're* - very pleased to be here." He looked around the room. "This is beautiful... "  
  
Sylia smiled at him. "Thank you. I like it... " She took his arm. "Come and meet some of Nene's other friends." She led him across to the ADPolice contingent. "Hitoshi Kamazawa, may I introduce you to ADPolice Inspectors Leon McNicol and Daley Wong, and Senior Despatcher Naoko Hasegawa. Nene worked extensively with Inspector McNicol, and Hasegawa-san was one of her closest friends at ADPolice Headquarters."  
  
Toshi bowed to the group. "'Toshi', please. I'm pleased to meet you. Any friend of Nene's is a friend of mine... "  
  
Just then he was interrupted by a small whirlwind at his elbow. "Toshi!" Nene pulled him round to face her and almost dragged him away from the fascinated police officers. "Toshi, this is Linna - " she put a hand on the dancer's arm - "and this is Priss."  
  
Linna smiled. "Hello, Toshi-san. Now I see why Nene kept you a secret for so long!"  
  
"Linna!" Nene blushed, embarrassed.  
  
Toshi returned the smile. "And if I'd known that Nene had friends like you, I'd have persuaded her to bring me to MegaTokyo much sooner."  
  
Linna grinned at him, her clear blue eyes sparkling. "Why, thank you, kind sir!"  
  
Priss looked up, an evil glint in her eyes. "Hands off, Linna. You've already got a boyfriend." She gave Toshi her best bedroom smile. "But *I* don't have anyone... at the moment... "  
  
"Priss!" Nene glared at the singer and put a possessive arm round Toshi's waist.  
  
Linna winked at them. "Shall I drag Leon over here and ask him if he feels the same way about that?" she asked innocently.  
  
Priss whirled to face her. "You do, and I'll... " She fought for words, then finally burst out laughing at the chagrined expression on Nene's face.  
  
"Oh, that was *priceless*," she chortled merrily. "You deserved *something* after going off and leaving us like that!"  
  
"Why, you - " Nene scowled at Priss and Linna and turned to Toshi. "I'm sorry, Toshi. I should have warned you about these two... "  
  
Toshi squeezed her hand. "Hey, this is *fun*! Are all your friends this interesting?"  
  
Nene laughed. "Well, Priss and Linna are special cases. Let me introduce you properly to Naoko - I used to work with her at ADPolice Headquarters and she's quite normal... "  
  
* * * * *  
  
Linna watched the pair cross the room, a small smile on her face. "So, what do you think? she asked, turning to Priss.  
  
"Seems nice enough," came Priss' cautious reply. "He and Nene certainly have a thing going, don't they?" She sniggered. "They can hardly keep their hands off each other... "  
  
"First love's dream," grinned Linna. "It is rather sweet, isn't it?"  
  
"Huh. I can feel my teeth rotting already." She snagged Sylia's sleeve as the Knight Sabers' leader walked past. "OK, Sylia, what's the dope on this guy?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Don't play the innocent with us, Sylia. I'm sure you know everything there is to know about 'Toshi Kamazawa' by now."  
  
Sylia stared at the singer for a long moment. "Even if I *had* done what you suggest, Priss, do you really think I'd tell you?"  
  
Priss shrugged her shoulders. "You'd damn' well better, especially if it's anything bad. I don't want to see Nene hurt by this guy."  
  
Sylia sighed. "I suppose you'll make a complete nuisance of yourself if I just ignore this?"  
  
"You'd better believe it."  
  
"Very well. But *all* I'm going to say is that Kamazawa-san appears to be exactly what he says he is - a self-employed systems and security consultant born, living and working in Osaka. He holds degrees in Computer Theory and Advanced Mechanical Design from one of the local universities and he has a licence to teach judo, but doesn't do so. He has no criminal record, other than a few speeding tickets - " she paused, a small smile flitting across her face, "but we can't count *those*, can we?"  
  
Priss scowled at her while Linna smirked self-righteously in the background. "OK, OK, I get the message - Toshi's personal life is 'off limits'." She gave Sylia a hard look. "But he'd better not mess up, that's all."  
  
Sylia made an irritated gesture. "He hasn't for the last eight months, so... " She stared hard at the singer. "Nene really seems to be happy. Don't interfere, Priss. Please?"  
  
* * * * *  
  
"Sylia!" Nene managed to get free of the ADPolice contingent long enough to speak to their hostess. "Umm... " She hesitated, suddenly unsure of how to proceed.  
  
"What is it, Nene?" Sylia eyed the younger girl kindly, pleased with what she had seen during the evening. Nene had finally... grown up, she thought best described the changes in her young friend.  
  
"I was wondering - where's Mackie? Why isn't he here? I hope he didn't stay away because of me... " She blushed slightly. "That sounds terribly conceited, doesn't it... "  
  
Sylia smiled sympathetically. "No, no, he'll be here. He had to pick someone up, that's all."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
Sylia paused, considering what she should say next, then gave a mental shrug. "He was hurt when you left, Nene, but time hasn't stood still for him any more than it has done for you. He's got a girlfriend, now."  
  
"Oh... " *That* revelation brought Nene up short; she was not at all sure for a moment just how she felt about the thought of Mackie going out with someone else.  
  
Then her innate sense of fairness reasserted itself. She had been fortunate enough to find Toshi, and she was happy; how could she resent it if Mackie has also found someone?  
  
"Nene?" Sylia's concerned tone interrupted the internal dialogue.  
  
"Oh, sorry... " She reached out and touched Sylia's arm in reassurance. "I'm OK. If Mackie's been lucky enough to find someone who makes him as happy as Toshi makes me, how could I be anything but pleased for him?" She glanced over at Toshi as she spoke, then laughed. Her partner was engaged in an animated discussion with Priss and Leon, she guessed on the subject of motorcycles. Dr. Raven was listening intently, a look of growing disapproval and alarm on his face.  
  
Sylia followed her gaze and smiled. "It seems that Kamazawa-san has something else in common with Priss and Inspector McNicol apart from a certain fondness for you," she said. "Don't tell me you've taken up motorcycling as well?"  
  
Nene giggled. "No, I still have a scooter. It's much more practical in the city, and the Police don't automatically assume I'm some sort of delinquent... "  
  
At that moment the doors opened and Mackie stepped into the room. Sylia, facing the hallway, leaned closer to Nene and whispered, "Mackie's just arrived... "  
  
Nene paled slightly, swallowed hard, and turned to face him.  
  
"Hello, Nene." Mackie's tone was cool, his face showing an uncharacteristic strain.  
  
"Hello, Mackie. Oh dear, you sound as uncomfortable as I feel... " She made a rapid decision, stepped over to him and kissed him quickly on the cheek. "I'm sorry, Mackie. I treated you very badly, didn't I?" She searched his face for a reaction. "Please say you forgive me?"  
  
"I was very angry at you for quite a while," Mackie admitted, then his face lit up as he smiled. "But someone we both know helped me 'snap out of it'... " He pulled his companion forward.  
  
"*Lisa*?" Nene's jaw dropped.  
  
"Hello, Nene." Lisa Vanette reached forward and gave Nene a quick hug. "I probably shouldn't say this, but you really did me a favour when you went off like that." She smiled a little self-consciously.  
  
Nene returned the girl's embrace. "I'm happy that you're happy - both of you... " She smiled. "How does Sylia feel about you dating a hot-shot photo-journalist, Mackie?"  
  
He grimaced. "I think the jury's still out on that one," he replied, shooting a glance at his sister. "But Lisa's promised to behave. Haven't you, Lisa-chan?"  
  
"I *try*." She grinned mischievously. "But there are so many interesting people here! I'm not even going to *ask* why the owner of the most exclusive boutique in MegaTokyo would invite a couple of senior ADPolice officers, a dealer on the stock market and a rising rock singer to a private homecoming party for a software consultant... "  
  
"Lisa!" whispered Mackie, horrified.  
  
"Hah! Gotcha, Mackie!" replied Lisa with a triumphant grin. She turned back to Nene. "The only thing wrong with him is that he tends to take everything too seriously."  
  
Nene laughed, the last of the evening's tensions finally dispelled. "If anyone can cure him of that, Lisa, you can... "  
  
* * * * *  
  
Eventually the guests started to trickle away. The ADPolice party was the first to leave; by eleven o'clock Naoko was pleading fatigue following a long shift at work and Daley offered to drive her home. His joking comment to the others that she would surely be safer with him than with Leon reduced everyone except Leon himself to fits of laughter, and even the slandered senior inspector managed to muster a wry grin. Leon left not long afterwards - alone, having failed to persuade Priss to accompany him. Dr. Raven, Mackie and Lisa Vanette left together. Mackie offered to drop the doctor off at his apartment before taking Lisa home. The young couple had happy glints in their eyes that suggested to the others that Mackie would not be returning that night to the penthouse apartment that he shared with his sister.  
  
* * * * *  
  
When the others had left, Priss and Linna pulled a couple of chairs up to the sofa on which Toshi and Nene were sitting. Sylia set a new pot of coffee to brew and started to collect the various cups, plates and glasses that had been left by the other guests but made it quite obvious that she was still listening to the conversation.  
  
"So, Nene - just how *did* you meet Toshi, anyway?" Priss leaned forward slightly to emphasise the question.  
  
"He was advertising for someone to help with the software on a project just when I needed a job," replied Nene. "It was that simple... "  
  
Toshi smiled in reminiscence. "I still remember the first time you came into my office," he said. "In fact I keep something just to remind me of that day... " He pulled out his wallet and removed a photograph. "I don't think I told you that I took a still from the office CCTV system... "  
  
Nene blanched. "Toshi, you didn't!"  
  
Linna leaned forward, her interest piqued by Nene's reaction. "C'mon, show!"  
  
"Don't you dare!" Nene lunged for the photograph, but Toshi grinned and held it out of her reach.  
  
"I *like* this picture, love," he said. "And I *like* to be reminded of the first time we met."  
  
"Hah!" Priss grinned in triumph as she snatched the object of Nene's concern from Toshi's hand. "Now, let's see... " She turned the picture over, then whistled softly. "Whoa! Are you *sure* it was Nene, that day?" She turned the photograph to Linna.  
  
"Wow!" Linna's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "Nene, you look... " She stopped short, unable to find adequate words.  
  
The image showed a Nene very unlike the girl that the others had known. She was wearing dark green, high-heeled, knee-high boots, a matching dark green pleated mini-skirt that reminded Linna of the sailor fukus worn by so many of her childhood anime heroines, and a white bandeau top. She had a matching green jacket draped over one arm and her hair was done up in an extravagant ponytail.  
  
"Hot!" said Priss approvingly. She grinned slyly at the younger girl. "You lost some weight, too, huh?"  
  
"I did a lot of walking, those first few months in Osaka," agreed Nene solemnly. "I didn't have much money, and Osaka is actually a nice city if you're on foot."  
  
Linna chuckled. "I bet you didn't walk far in those boots!"  
  
"That was the first day I wore them," grinned Nene. "They were pretty uncomfortable, too - I had to take a taxi to Toshi's office." She smiled. "I was keen to make an impression - I *really* wanted that job."  
  
"Why?" said Linna. "I mean, this was a small, one-man outfit - no offence, Toshi - but with your skills you could have joined one of the 'big boys' and made some mega-bucks... "  
  
"I really don't know exactly," replied Nene. "But I'd already decided that I didn't want the standard 'corporate dream' - I was looking for something more... independent. I'd had enough of sitting in an office all day with the ADPolice, but even there I used to get out occasionally, even if it was only to help out on traffic control."  
  
"I can understand that," said Linna. "But you still haven't explained why you ended up working with Toshi... "  
  
"Well, my new business wasn't going so well. It takes time to build a reputation, and jobs were few and far between. I was getting low on ready cash, so a sub-contract job for a while looked like a good option. The advert said it would be for at least four weeks; I did some research before I went along to the interview, and the security business sounded like good one to have a look at - there never seems to be any shortage of people who feel unsafe. And Toshi's company already had a very good reputation. Of course I had no idea what would happen when we met, or the impression that he'd make on me... " She trailed off, blushing.  
  
Toshi laughed. "You certainly made an impression on me, all right - I nearly jumped you right there in the office!"  
  
"Don't think I didn't notice!" She pouted. "But you still put me 'through my paces' on the technical questions before you hired me... "  
  
Linna grinned. "For shame, Nene... You mean you couldn't get Toshi to hire you just because you're 'Miss Good Looks and Amazing Brain'? She and Priss burst out laughing at the expression on Nene's face.  
  
"Well, I had to find some way to keep such a lovely little thing around for a while, so I could ogle her," Toshi explained to the others, also laughing. "Looking like that, I was afraid she'd turn out to be a complete airhead and I wouldn't be able to offer her the job."   
  
Nene transferred her glare from Linna to Toshi; he grinned at her and squeezed her hand. "It didn't take me long to find out that's not the case, of course."  
  
Nene smacked him gently on the head. "It's just as well for you that you added that last bit!" She turned to her friends. "I think he was really disappointed when I turned up the next day for work in slacks and a shirt." She giggled. "In fact I nearly got the wrong idea - he only asked me out when I started wearing shorts in the office during the hot weather! I thought he was just after my body... "  
  
Toshi chuckled. "By then I could see just how good you were at the job, and I was sure that you were 'slumming' - I simply couldn't figure out why someone with your ability wanted to work for an operation like mine. And I was *positive* that someone as gorgeous as you wouldn't want to go out with me. It took me a long while to pluck up the courage to ask you..."  
  
She smiled happily and leaned into his arm. "I know! *I* almost had to seduce *you*, in the end... "  
  
* * * * *  
  
By 1.00am Linna was attempting to stifle her yawns. She left shortly afterwards together with Priss, who had muscled an invitation from her to sleep on the couch in her apartment rather than go home to her trailer. Sylia was quietly pleased to see how quickly and easily the old camaraderie between the Knight Sabers had been re-established, even expanding - so far as she could tell - to cheerfully accept Toshi Kamazawa.  
  
After Priss and Linna had finally departed, and Sylia had bidden the couple goodnight, Nene and Toshi walked quietly along to the guest suite.  
  
"So, what do you think of my friends?" Nene dropped her shoes in the corner; she had slipped them off her feet hours before for comfort's sake with a mental vow never to wear that pair again. She stretched, yawning widely, then removed her jacket and slung it over the back of a chair.  
  
Toshi swept her up in an exuberant embrace. "I like them. All of them. Though Priss is a bit moody, isn't she?" He chuckled. "I don't think she really noticed me until she realised that I ride a bike. She spent most of her time needling that ADPolice guy... "  
  
"Leon?"  
  
"Yeah. She didn't bother the other one, though."  
  
Nene grinned at him. "Didn't you figure it out? Let's just say that Priss isn't Daley's type... "  
  
"Ah. I did wonder, especially the way he made that crack about Naoko being safer with him than with Leon, but I wasn't certain."  
  
"What about the others?  
  
"Well, I already met Sylia back in Osaka, of course. She's very... contained, isn't she? Linna's nice. *Really* nice. She went to a lot of trouble to make sure that Naoko didn't feel too out of things."  
  
"Linna's a real party animal when she wants to be," grinned Nene. "She might just as easily have started a conga line in the middle of the floor to 'break the ice'... "  
  
"I got to talk to Sylia's brother a little, too. He's a real nice kid - and so's that girl he brought with him."  
  
Nene laughed. "Don't let Mackie hear you call him a kid!" She paused thoughtfully, then grinned as a thought struck her. "Actually you ought to talk to him on a professional basis. Mackie has a remarkably... inventive... way with surveillance cameras!"  
  
"Really? I'd enjoy a chat with him about that... "  
  
* * * * *  
  
* Part Three *  
  
Nene jerked awake; a sound almost below the hearing threshold whispered ghost-like in her ears. She blinked, confused, and reached a hand up to scrub the sleep from her eyes. The night was still dark when she turned her head to squint through a chink in the curtains through a gap in the curtains; the clock by the bedside showed 4.00am. when she turned her head to the other side to look at it.  
  
All was now quiet. But what had wakened her? She closed her eyes, trying to recapture the elusive sound in her mind...  
  
The Knightwing! Her eyes opened wide, an involuntary movement as the realisation hit her. No wonder the sound had seemed familiar; the scream of the little aircraft's vectored thrust VTOL engines in the confined space of its silo was quite distinctive and not something she could forget. Nene closed her eyes and suddenly found herself standing in the concealed hangar directly below the penthouse level, first in her hardsuit prepping for a mission, then in jeans and T-shirt helping Sylia program the little aircraft's ECM/ECCM systems. She shook her head and opened her eyes again, suddenly disoriented but now wide awake.  
  
Moved by a stimulus that she did not pause to analyse she left the warmth of the bed to stand, naked and shivering slightly in the cool of the night, by the curtained window. She turned to look at Toshi in the dim light cast by the clock LEDs; her lover muttered something unintelligible under his breath and slept on, apparently undisturbed. For a brief moment she wondered at the impulse that had moved her, then she reached out for her bathrobe and slipped her feet into her sandals.  
  
Stepping cautiously to the doorway she turned to look at Toshi again; re-assured, she opened the door to the hallway. The rest of the penthouse was in darkness, the gloom relieved only by the glow of an emergency light in the ceiling.  
  
She tiptoed quietly out of the guest suite and closed the door softly behind her, padding quietly down the corridor to a door at the far end. The keypad glowed softly and she entered a series of numbers that she knew by heart, then breathed a sigh as the door to the stairwell swung open.  
  
The stairwell was narrow and only dimly lit, a last-minute concession by Sylia to the possibility that the team might need to make a rapid departure from the building under conditions that would preclude the use of the elevator. Nene descended the steep, dusty steps, the sound of her light footfalls fading into the deadened air of the soundproofed staircase.  
  
When Nene reached the hardsuit storage and maintenance level on the floor below the hangar, she pushed the bar on the back of the door and swung it open. As she entered the large room the movement sensors activated the lights and she stopped for a moment to let her eyes adjust. The first thing she saw was Mackie's workbench, covered as usual with blueprints, half-completed pieces of circuitry and empty styrofoam coffee cups. Her gaze drifted inexorably to the hardsuit bays; three unsurprisingly were open and empty, but the fourth...  
  
She stepped hesitantly over to the last bay. Her name was still inscribed on the front-plate (just why *had* Sylia written their names in Romanji, she wondered idly) and she reached out a tentative hand to touch it. There was a soft 'click' as the pressure plate activated and she started, surprised that the bay was still active, then watched mesmerised as with a whine of electrical systems the bay doors unfolded to reveal the hardsuit cradled within.  
  
The sound and movement jolted her out of her trance. She was surprised that Sylia had not deactivated the red-and-pink suit; she had never given the Knight Sabers' leader any hint of a time when she would return. The hardsuits almost by definition had to be custom-built for each wearer; her suit could not be operated by anyone else. She did not believe for a moment that Sylia had kept the systems on-line out of sentiment.  
  
She shook her head and toggled the switch, watching as the hardsuit cradle swung closed again. She wandered further into the complex, wrapped in memories, and eventually arrived in the computer suite where Sylia designed the hardsuits. Someone - probably Mackie, she thought, recalling that he often used to listen in to the ADPolice, and to the Sabers themselves when they were out on a mission - had left a radio scanner on the console and she grinned. The Knightwing had been gone for a little over half an hour and would probably now be on its return flight; she could surprise her friends with breakfast. She wondered for a moment about Toshi, then decided that he would not be surprised if such close friends occasionally ate breakfast together. She picked up the receiver and flicked it on as she turned back towards the stairs and the kitchen.  
  
"Sylia? Where the hell - " The voice was faint and distorted, and overlaid by a sputtering drone that suggested to Nene that a powerful jammer was at work, but she had no trouble in identifying Priss as the speaker.  
  
"Sylia, there are too *many* - " Linna.  
  
"Priss, Linna, try to - " " - back to the entran - " bzzt "I'm trying - " " - jam their tacnet but - "   
  
The voice channel fell silent for several seconds, the hiss and crackle of the carrier wave all she could hear, then Linna cried, "Sylia! Priss is down - " " - hurt - " " - trapped - "   
  
Face white with shock, Nene did not wait to hear more as sudden fear for her friends over-rode any conscious terrors that she might have had of donning her hardsuit again. She bolted back to the hardsuit room, the receiver still in her hand but the Knight Sabers' frequency ominously silent, slapped her palm against the pressure plate on her hardsuit cradle and continued on into the changing room. Her softsuit was still in her locker and she pulled it on, stretching in the sequence that her body still remembered to settle the contacts built into the form-fitting garment against her muscles. The receiver was still silent; she punched in the frequency for the ADPolice tactical band and was rewarded with Leon McNicol's voice.  
  
"Daley, get your unit - " " - overpass, we'll try - " " - bastards down if they - " " - away."  
  
"Where, you dummy?" Nene muttered under her breath. "Where *are* you? Ahhh... "  
  
-" - Daley - " " - I've - " " - K12's. " - bastards - " " - warehouse district - " " - Kawasaki - "   
  
" - that, Leon. I hope - " " - doing! Where - " " - Sabers?"  
  
"I don't - " " - they - " " - inside - " " - the roof - " " - buried - " . The receiver went silent.  
  
"Oh my god... " Anguished tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. "I should have been there... " She wiped a hand across her face. "What can I - ?"  
  
"Nene? What on earth... "  
  
Nene spun round at the unexpected interruption to see Toshi standing in the doorway, dishevelled and wearing only his pyjama trousers. "Toshi? What... how... " She trailed off in dismay as he walked across the room towards her.  
  
"I woke up and you weren't there, so I went to find you. The door in the hallway wasn't shut... "  
  
"What do you... The accesses to this level are all self-closing... " She stopped short, confusion on her face.  
  
He shrugged his shoulders. "Don't ask me. The door was wide open when I found it. Then I saw your footprints on the stairs... " He gazed in wonder at his surroundings, shaking his head. "I'm dreaming, right?" He reached out to run his fingers lightly down the red hardsuit resting in its cradle. "This is beautiful... " Then he noticed the name on the ID plate. "Wait a minute... Nene, you're not *serious*...?"  
  
"Do you *trust* me, Toshi?" She turned her clear blue-green eyes on him, almost pleading with him to have faith in her.  
  
"I... of course... you know I do." He laughed shakily. "I always thought the Knight Sabers were just another one of those urban myths... "  
  
She responded with a small hesitant smile. "No, they're... *we're*... quite real. I'll explain later - right now there's no *time*. The others are in trouble. They need me." She stepped into the hardsuit cradle as she spoke, sliding her feet into the feet of the suit, allowing the body of the suit to rise up around her as she spoke. The latches clicked into place and the power systems came alive; the suit clicked and whirred, and Toshi took an involuntary step back.  
  
Nene turned, suddenly realising with dismay what was *not* in the room. "Damn. No motoroids... They took the Knightwing - but did they go straight to Kawasaki, or did they - " She stopped short, thoughts tumbling through her mind, then looked decisively at her partner. "Toshi, can you drive a stick-shift?"  
  
"Uh... yeah. Why?"  
  
"I need to get to Kawasaki. Will you help me? Please?"  
  
He swallowed hard and nodded, eyes wide but serious.  
  
"And can you drive a truck?"  
  
"I guess. It's been a while, but I used to drive a delivery truck back in college, to help pay my tuition... It wasn't a semi or anything like that, though... "  
  
"No problem. Our support vehicle is pretty big, but it's rigid. OK, go get some clothes on, then wait for me in the hallway."  
  
He stood transfixed for a moment, wondering what he had stumbled into.  
  
"*Go*!" she fairly screamed at him, fear for the others clawing at her heart.  
  
Toshi recoiled in shock at her urgency, then reached out and laid gentle fingers on her cheek before turning and running for the stairs. Nene closed her eyes for a brief second, relishing the contact, then slipped her helmet over her head and brought the hardsuit systems on-line, refreshing her memory on its operation - and also checking that Sylia had not altered anything since she had last worn it.  
  
Once satisfied that she would encounter no surprises from her hardsuit, Nene turned to the security station at the side of the room. "Now... did Sylia stop off to pick up the Sky Carrier?" she muttered to herself as she fired up the system. Status tags flickered and steadied and she frowned. "Hmm... the motoroids are all on the Carrier and the Carrier is still in the hangar... OK." She powered the system down, grabbed the radio receiver and ran for the stairs.  
  
Toshi, wearing jeans, sneakers and a sweatshirt, was waiting for her when she burst through the door. She stepped forward, reached across and snatched Sylia's keys from the table in the corner, tossing them to Toshi; he caught them almost by reflex and aimed a questioning look at her.  
  
"Sylia's Mercedes," she explained, urging him towards the elevator. "It's a lot faster than the shop van."  
  
"But I thought you can fly?" he asked as the elevator doors closed behind them.  
  
She managed not to laugh at the naivety of the question. "Not for 15 miles, I can't!"  
  
* * * * *  
  
Toshi turned the key in the ignition and grinned as the car's powerful engine growled into life. "Nice motor... " He selected first gear and swung the vehicle round to face the ramp that lead up to the street. "Which way?"  
  
"Left at the top, down to the intersection, left onto the main highway. Then keep straight on 'till I tell you... "  
  
"OK." The engine roared and the car surged forward. "Where are we going?"  
  
"Kawasaki, eventually, but I need to make a detour first to pick up some gear. And the truck... "  
  
The scarlet Mercedes roared through the almost deserted city streets. It was still dark, the gloom enhanced by the solid cloud cover and consequent lack of moonlight. Nene, crammed into the left-hand seat, was thankful for perhaps the first time in her life that she was no taller; she had managed to squeeze herself into the car by pushing the seat back to its furthest extent, but she was by no means comfortable.  
  
She turned her head slightly to study Toshi's profile in the irregular flashes of light cast by the street lamps. He sensed her gaze and darted a glance at her, concentration clear in his face as he accepted her instructions; unfamiliar with the streets of MegaTokyo, he was totally reliant on the directions that Nene was giving him.  
  
"Are you OK, Toshi?"  
  
The softly-voiced question broke into his concentration and the car jerked slightly before he regained control. "Actually, I am," he replied after a short considering pause. "I think that sheer disbelief has finally set in... "  
  
Nene giggled, then. "Just don't disbelieve in the next corner, OK?"  
  
He chuckled nervously in turn. "Oh, I'm being very careful, can't you tell? I wouldn't want to go off the road at this speed. I'd never get the chance to ask you properly about... well, about all this... " He took one hand off the wheel to pat the leg of Nene's hardsuit; the speeding vehicle veered across all three lanes of the highway and he jerked the hand back to regain control. "Of course you don't need to worry, you'd probably survive a car crash in *that*... "  
  
"I'm not worried about a car crash," she muttered under her breath. "It's the boomers where we're going that scare me... "  
  
* * * * *  
  
"Where are we?" Toshi squinted up at the featureless walls of the utterly unremarkable warehouse.  
  
"If I were to tell you that I'd have to shoot you... Joke!" she added at Toshio's startled expression. "Seriously, this is where we keep our heavy equipment. There's not really much room at 'Ladys633', you know." As she spoke she triggered the big up-and-over door in front of them, which rose slowly to reveal a vast, shadowed interior. Several dim shapes lurked in the darkness. "Drive in and park anywhere on the right. Just don't block the truck... "  
  
"OK." Toshi nosed the car into the building then gave a sharp intake of breath as the headlights played across the massive bulk of the Sky Carrier. "Good God, Nene! Are you guys running your own air force?"  
  
Nene chuckled as she levered herself out of the car. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it? I always mean to ask where Sylia found that thing - " she gestured at the Carrier, " - but somehow I've never managed to pluck up the courage!" As she spoke she triggered the hanger door shut, switched on the roof lights and activated the Carrier's systems. Telltales flickered across the HUD in her helmet as the aircraft's APU brought the main systems on-line; the rear loading ramp hinged down and light blazed out from the air-lifter's cavernous hold.  
  
Toshi watched almost in shock as four huge exo-skeletons marched down the ramp. They paused momentarily at the foot then turned towards the big truck parked next the aircraft. The truck's rear doors opened and the motoroids climbed aboard; the truck settled noticeably on its suspension at the increased weight. Toshi let out the breath he had unconsciously been holding. "What the devil are *those*?"  
  
Nene beckoned him towards the truck. "The motoroids? I guess you could call them powered armour for our powered armour. Though they're a lot more than that, as well... " She grinned behind the helmet. "If you think *these* are impressive, you ought to see the new ones. I'd take them instead, they're more powerful, but I've never handled them all at once before and this won't be a good time to start experimenting... " She opened the door on the left-hand side of the cab and clambered aboard. "You're sure you can drive this thing?"  
  
"No problem. It's the same as the one I used to drive... " He swung up behind the wheel. "Keys?"  
  
"Here... " Nene reached across and handed them to him.  
  
"OK. Here we go!" He fired the truck's engine to life; the hangar lights went out as the door started to open. He crept the truck out onto the parking lot, then glanced at Nene.  
  
"Right, left, left," she said in reply to his unasked question. "Straight down the Expressway to Kawasaki. And hurry," she added after a moment. "It's another ten miles to Kawasaki, and I don't know exactly where we've got to go, yet. I just hope we're not too late... "  
  
"You got it." He gunned the motor and the truck leapt forward into the night.  
  
* * * * *  
  
The truck lurched over a pothole and crested a rise in the ground. Toshi looked anxiously ahead, trying to read the road while Nene directed her attention to a further intensive scan of the area in an attempt to locate her friends, then gasped. "Oh my god... Is that... "  
  
Toshi's awed question interrupted Nene's concentration. She looked up to see a column of smoke rising into the night sky, lit from below gouts of flame and the actinic flares of blasts from the mouth cannons of a considerable number of boomers. "Looks like it. Yes, there's the ADPolice cordon." She thought for a moment. "Right, Toshi, this is where I get out.... "  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I can't just waltz through the Police lines in the hardsuit," she replied. "Stop here. I can easily sneak through on my own, and I think I'm going to need to be a lot closer to 'ground zero' if I'm to be of any good to the others."  
  
"If you say so," he replied dubiously as he nonetheless pulled the truck in to the kerb. Nene threw open the door, dropped to the ground and stretched, extending the vanes of her suit as she did so. She briefly debated attempting to contact her team-mates but then decided that such an action would be overly rash. She had no way to know what improvements GENOM might have made to their combat boomers and it was entirely possible that they would detect her transmissions, thus removing the element of surprise on which she hoped to rely. In any event the jamming made any such attempt something of a lottery; better to first try to remove the source of the interference.  
  
The motoroids followed her, leaping from the back of the truck to stand ranged behind her like an honour guard. As she marshalled her troops the ever-present fear for her friends' safety crept closer and closer to the front of her mind. She stopped and took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself, and tried to keep in the front of her mind the basis for her hope. Combat boomers were remorselessly logical and (popular belief notwithstanding) almost immune from 'rogue' behaviour, unlike their cheaper cousins that ended up in the construction and other service industries; if therefore the Knight Sabers were already dead it was unlikely that the bio-mechs would still be attacking the building on which they appeared to have fixated. She knew that the majority of the construction projects in the warehouse district had involved substantial foundation works, and a scan of city building permits had indicated that the building under attack by the boomers had multiple sub-basement levels. She could only hope that Sylia, Priss and Linna were still alive but trapped below ground...  
  
She switched a segment of her hardsuit's onboard computer to semi-independent mode and set it to co-ordinate the actions of three of the motoroids. She transformed her own motoroid into motoslave mode and gingerly allowed it to clamp her into position at its heart. She did not enjoy using the exo-skeleton in that way, and rarely had any need to do so, but realistically its enhanced power and armour might make the difference between life and death during the conflict in which she was about to engage. She spent a few moments plotting the position of the various ADPolice pickets then switched her hardsuit systems to full stealth mode, toggled the motoslave's jump thrusters and with a whispered, "Knight Sabers - sanjo," leapt into the shadows.  
  
"Be careful, love... " Toshi whispered as he watched her leave, his heart in his mouth and a cold sickness in his gut. Boomers were comparatively uncommon in Osaka; he could only ever recall having seen them on construction sites, and the few rogues had always been promptly and effectively despatched by the city's ADPolice detachment. He had never encountered any of the combat models, but their power - and the danger they presented - had become very evident to him in the space of just a few moments.  
  
To Nene's considerable surprise, the first thing that she located on activating her passive scanners was the Knightwing. The little aircraft had been built for stealth operations but its engines radiated just enough heat that Nene's ultra-sensitive equipment was able to detect it. She and Toshi had been standing only about a half-mile from the building on whose roof Sylia had stationed the aircraft. It was also only some 500 yards from the location of the boomers that were still attempting to reduce a now derelict building to splinters of rubble; Nene wondered for a moment why Sylia had left the craft so close to the combat zone, then dismissed the question as unimportant.  
  
She moved swiftly through the complex of warehouses and industrial buildings. Evading the ADPolice patrols was relatively easy, as they were mostly watching for boomers attempting to move outwards from the devastated area; by keeping mostly to the rooftops she could easily spot their torches and act accordingly. She had been a little concerned about the Firebee attack helicopters, but it appeared that the ADPolice's Tactical Commander had not committed his aerial forces to the battle. Nene was relieved, both for herself and for the pilots; not only would she have been easy to spot from the air, but the little machines had in the past proved to be easy targets for the boomers. She was more worried about any boomers that might be roaming the area; they would be harder for her to detect, harder for her to deceive and considerably more aggressive if they spotted her.  
  
The motoroids followed her, fanning out slightly as they advanced. With luck the boomers would not be aware that the big exo-skeletons could be tasked to operate independently of the hardsuits - provided that someone was present to activate and control the units, and had the necessary systems available to do so. She grinned again as she tracked the motoroids across the warehouse park; her hardsuit was the only one carrying communications systems capable of running all four motoroids independently and simultaneously.  
  
By the time Nene reached the edge of the combat zone she was sweating freely both from the unaccustomed exertion and from nervous tension. She had forgotten that particular aspect of wearing a hardsuit; droplets were running into her eyes and trickling down her chin, and she wished for a moment that she could risk opening the faceplate of her helmet to let the night air cool her face.  
  
As she moved deeper into the maze of buildings she decided to abandon her attempts at stealth in favour of establishing contact with the others. Checking quickly to ensure that the motoroids were behaving as expected, she activated the hardsuit comm systems, generated the most powerful pulse that she could contrive and rammed it through the boomers' jamming signal, using the motoroid's power source to supplement the hardsuit's internal power pack. The interference from the boomers' jammer ceased almost instantly; the Knight Sabers' communications frequency sprang to life.  
  
"Saber Pink to all Knight Sabers, come in! Saber Pink to all Knight - "  
  
"Saber White to Saber Pink, go CZ-Gamma-Alpha."  
  
"Roger." Nene reconfigured her comms output to cycle across the encryption patterns that Sylia had specified. "Sylia? Are you sure this a secure channel?"  
  
"Yes, I'm quite sure, Nene." Sylia's dry tone carried even across the suit radios and Nene grinned in relief.  
  
"Are you OK? Where are you?"  
  
"We're in one of the sub-basements of what used to be the Gulf and Bradley facility. When the boomers couldn't kill us outright they tried to bring the roof down, and we had to go down or get buried. We're OK - Priss took some ankle damage and I've got a badly wrenched shoulder - but we can't get out. We've destroyed every boomer that's tried to come down here after us, but we can't come up the ramp to the surface without the same thing happening to us."  
  
"OK. I should be able to pinpoint your exact location when I get a bit closer. Unless you don't need me to do that? I've got an army of BU-55's up here to deal with... "  
  
"No, we could easily get out of here if it wasn't for the boomers. There's a ramp up to the surface - but it's a 'Mexican stand-off'. We'll lose out heads if we show them up there at the moment. We don't have room to manoeuvre, the ceilings are too low - they could pick us off too easily... "  
  
"Well, I'd better see if I can get the boomers off your backs long enough for you to get out, then - "  
  
"How the blazes are you going to do *that*?" interrupted Priss. "Not that I'm against the idea, but there must be a dozen of those sons-of-bitches up there."  
  
Nene grinned. "Eleven, actually, according to my scans. A bunch of them seem to be watching your 'ramp', and three or four seem to be patrolling - when I broke their jamming I rather told them I'm here, and I think they're looking for me. But I've got help. It's just as well that you didn't change the access codes to the motoroids... "  
  
"Ah... " Comprehension was evident in Sylia's tone. "You've brought them with you, slaved to your hardsuit?"  
  
"More or less. I've segmented the suit AI to co-ordinate your three. I'm wearing mine - I want the increased armour when I show myself. And the increased power for my counter-jammers."  
  
"The motoroids won't last long against a squad of boomers," warned Sylia, concern in her voice. "Even if the boomers can't use their tacnet... "  
  
"I know that," replied Nene. "I'll take their tacnet down anyway - it ought to at least slow them down a bit - but this is going to be a 'hit and run' job. The motoroids will hit the boomers and try to draw them away from the entrance, you come up the ramp and run like blazes back to the Knightwing. I'll wait near the top of the ramp in case any of the boomers aren't fooled... "  
  
As she spoke Nene began very cautiously to access the boomers' communications net. It seemed to her that the BU-55's were operating on a system that she had seen before... The old skills came flowing back as she worked, and it took her less than two minutes before she was satisfied that she had complete access to the boomers' C&C channel. She mentally crossed her fingers - it had been almost a full year since she had last worked a hack on a boomer - and activated the hardsuit's ECM/ECCM systems, at the same time ordering the motoroids to break cover and launch their own attacks.  
  
The effect was spectacular, and much better than she had hoped for. The boomers froze for a split second as their communications net overloaded; the inbuilt capabilities of Nene's hardsuit, backed by the extra power drawn from the motoslave, simply overwhelmed them.  
  
Then the motoroids attacked. Three boomers vanished in balls of fire in that moment; the armoured exo-skeletons immediately wheeled smartly into the darkness in an attempt to draw off the remaining boomers into the maze of warehouses. The plan worked as Nene had intended; the boomers streamed towards the far side of the battle zone, but also as Sylia had warned the motoroids were no match for the sheer number of boomers engaged in the chase. A single lucky shot from one boomer blasted a motoroid into fragments of metal and plastic; and even though the other motoroids combined their fire to destroy the boomer in question the balance had shifted heavily in the boomers' favour. The battle could have only one outcome.  
  
Nene meanwhile had manoeuvred herself closer to the centre of the combat zone, hugging the shadows and creeping from wall to wall in an attempt to remain concealed for as long as possible. She finally reached a point from which she could see the open ramp leading down to the sub-basement in which the others had taken refuge. She could also see that two boomers that had remained on guard at the head of the ramp - a BU-55 and a BU-12B.  
  
She swallowed convulsively in an attempt to choke back the sudden sick fear that rose in her; beads of nervous sweat sprang out on her forehead. The BU-12B was perhaps the toughest, most intelligent, most battle-capable combat boomer that GENOM had ever produced; even Priss would hesitate to go one-on-one with a BU-12B, let alone one that was working with a colleague.  
  
But the others were relying on her to at least distract the pair of boomers long enough to escape from the underground facility in which they found themselves trapped. And she had her motoslave... She stood in the concealment of the wall, thinking furiously, then edged cautiously out until, inch by painstaking inch, she could bring the motoslave cannon to bear on the BU-55. She took careful aim and fired; the boomer's head exploded into fragments and its corpse collapsed to the ground. She nodded in satisfaction; she doubted that a single shot could have destroyed the BU-12B, but at least now she had removed its partner from the equation.  
  
The BU-12B spun round, seeking the source of the shot, and Nene wasted no more time. "Sylia! Get moving - I've engaged a BU-12B up here - " She fell silent as the boomer tracked a volley of cannon shells towards her position, leaping frantically to one side as the ground where she had been standing disappeared in gouts of flame and flying shrapnel. She twisted to face the boomer, desperately trying to obtain a firing solution with her own weapons, but the BU-12B had vanished into the shadows...  
  
She spun, seeking her target, then stifled a scream as she felt a punishing blow to her legs. She cut her ties to the motoslave as it fell, both legs blasted to shards of alloy and plastic by the BU-12B. The boomer crossed the distance between them faster than she would have believed possible, swinging a fist that seemed larger than a tree; Nene scrambled backwards as the fist descended but failed to evade a blow to the chest-plate of her hardsuit that flung her back like a rag doll into the wall behind her. She groaned in pain as she staggered to her feet; the hardsuit had taken the brunt of the blow and prevented serious injury but she could already tell that she would have some truly spectacular bruising.  
  
She threw herself to one side as a cannon-blast demolished the wall. Then she saw her motoslave; although the mech was crippled, its weapons were still intact - but it was facing the wrong way to use them. She sprang into the air, hardsuit thrusters aiding her in a soaring leap that carried her over the head of the boomer to land on its far side. She fired a couple of shots from the hardsuit laser to ensure that she had its attention then darted sideways across the front of the motoslave. As the boomer moved to track her it crossed the motoslave's firing arc and received a volley of railgun spikes to the head and chest that knocked it back and brought it momentarily to a standstill. The boomer was able to raise its cannon and fire a destructive volley at the motoslave, but ignoring Nene was its fatal mistake. The red hardsuit closed to within a few feet of the crippled boomer and unleashed a volley of concussion blasts that crushed the bio-mech's chest like tinfoil and removed its head from its shoulders.  
  
"Well done, Nene."  
  
Nene spun round to see the other Knight Sabers emerge from the shadow of the ramp. Priss was limping, the ankle of her hardsuit crushed out of shape, and Sylia had clearly taken a severe impact to the right shoulder; the armour was cracked and buckled. All three hardsuits were showing signs of hard use, with chips and scoring in plentiful evidence.  
  
"Nene, look out!" Linna suddenly leapt across the space separating them, the mono-molecular streamers attached to her helmet glinting in the light of the fires. But Nene had already noticed the BU-55 that had suddenly leapt out of the darkness and was ducking under it and to one side as it sailed over her head, mouth cannon extended for a killing shot.  
  
Too late. Linna's streamers met the boomer at the top of its arc and before it had attained a lock on its target; the bio-mech fell to the ground, chest and abdomen in ruins. Nene turned to glare at it as Linna stepped in to finish the job with a knuckle-bomb to the head; the boomer collapsed to the ground, its brain-case little more than an oily stain on the pavement.  
  
"You need to keep your eyes open," said Linna, a grin evident in her tone.  
  
"Yes, mother," retorted Nene, scowling. "I *had* already seen it, you know... "  
  
"What's the situation up here?" asked Sylia. Pain roughened her voice, and Nene stared closely at her before replying.  
  
"The rest of the boomers chased off after the motoroids. I sent them over towards that complex of GENOM warehouses on the south side - I figured that if there's going to be a pitched battle between the motoroids, the boomers and the ADPolice then it might as well be in GENOM's back yard!"  
  
Priss chuckled at that. "Nice touch, Nene." She looked round. "How in blazes did you take out a BU-12B on your own? I didn't think your suit had the weapons... "  
  
Nene shuddered at the memory. "It wasn't easy, believe me. Those things are *tough*. Just as well my motoslave still had a working railgun... "  
  
"Shall we go, ladies?" Sylia waved her uninjured arm in the direction of the approaching ADPolice forces, and Nene realised with a shock that she had not noticed that the detachment on the northern side of the warehouse park had started very cautiously to move in towards the site of the battle. The night had fallen quiet; it seemed that the fighting was over, at least for the present, and that the remaining boomers had either fled or been destroyed by the motoroids or the ADPolice.  
  
"What's happened to the motoroids?" asked Sylia as they made their way towards the Knightwing. "My suit readouts are all scrambled... "  
  
"Yours and mine were destroyed," said Nene. "And Linna's isn't broadcasting any more, either. Priss' is still running... " She paused for a moment. "I've ordered it back to the truck. The status board says it's pretty beat up, but it's still moving."  
  
"Good. OK, let's go." Sylia moved off, followed by the still-limping Priss and by Linna, who had Priss' arm over her shoulder.  
  
"I'll meet you back at 'Ladys633'," said Nene. "I left Toshi over behind the ADPolice cordon. He must be worried sick... "  
  
"You did what?" Sylia turned to look at Nene, appalled resignation in her voice.  
  
"Well, dammit, Sylia, how do you think I got here?" fired back Nene, nettled by the implied criticism. "It's not like I could just get on a bus even without the motoroids, and I couldn't fly all the way down here. I'm not Wonder Woman!"  
  
Sylia sighed. "You're right, and I'm sorry. We'll talk more when we get back, OK?"  
  
"Yeah." Nene watched as the others made their way back to the Knightwing and as the little aircraft took off, then turned to make her way back past the ADPolice lines to Toshi.  
  
By the time she reached the truck she was shaking with reaction to the night's events. During the battle she had barely had time either to think or to worry about the consequences; but now the fighting was done she began to realise just what she had done. And to realise that if Toshi had discovered the Knight Sabers' frequency on the scanner she had left on the seat he could have heard everything that had happened. She could not decide whether she would be happier if he knew, or if he had remained in ignorance.  
  
"Nene?" Toshi's concerned voice interrupted her thoughts and she turned wearily to him.  
  
"Nene? Are you OK?" Toshi looked terrified - but relieved that she had returned.  
  
"I'm OK, darling." She unlocked the catches on her helmet and lifted it over her head, wincing at the pain from the bruises on her chest and abdomen. Toshi took the helmet and put it in the car, then turned back to her, a question on his face. Then he simply leaned forwards and kissed her gently.  
  
"Phew!" He wrinkled his nose.  
  
She grinned tiredly at him. "I *know* I need a shower, love. There's no need to rub it in... "  
  
"Sorry." He fell silent, then shook his head. "Are your friends OK?"  
  
She brightened at that. "Yes. I... *we*... got here in time... "  
  
He stood and looked at her for a long moment then shook his head unhappily. "Oh, dammit, Nene... I was listening to the ADPolice band, and that was the longest ten minutes of my life. I was bloody terrified... for you, for the others, for *me*... I've never even *seen* a combat boomer before. How the hell do you *do* that?"  
  
She sighed. "If I'd stopped to think, I probably *wouldn't* have done it," she finally admitted. "Even when I was a regular member of the team my job was electronics warfare, hacking, ECM, that sort of thing. I didn't normally have to fight boomers one-on-one like that."  
  
"Well, if tonight was anything to go by, I 'm not surprised you left," he said finally.  
  
"Umm... " She gestured to the truck. "Shall we go? The ADPolice are bound to come poking around here eventually and I'd rather not be here when they arrive."  
  
"You got it." He helped ease her into the cab, then got in himself and started the engine. Then he grinned suddenly "Y'know, I'll say something for your choice of vacation: it's certainly *different*."  
  
She smiled wearily at him. "I'm glad you approve."  
  
* * * * *  
  
"If you'll excuse us, Kamazawa-san?" Sylia's request was polite but firm, and Toshi stood to leave the lounge in Sylia's apartment, where the Knight Sabers had assembled for the customary de-briefing.  
  
Nene glared at him and he hesitated; she transferred the glare to Sylia. "No, Sylia. Toshi risked his life to help us today. He's got a right to hear what you want to say where it affects him. Where it affects *us*." She grabbed Toshi's hand and pulled him back down onto the sofa.  
  
"That's an... unusual... attitude from you, Nene," said Sylia, surprise in her voice.  
  
Nene shrugged her shoulders. "You've been taking 'attitude' from Priss for years," she replied. "Maybe I've just never had a reason to give you any, before." She flushed slightly. "Toshi's not the first person to find out who we are - there are three people at least that I can name who know at least one of us. And that's only the 'good guys'. I trust Toshi with my life - "  
  
"But it's not just *your* life that we're talking about," said Sylia. "Anyway, the other breaches of security were accidental... "  
  
"What's the difference?" asked Nene. "If you want to argue *that*, then this is a better situation. I deliberately took the decision to involve Toshi because I trust him and I felt that he deserved to know what I was getting into, not just because I needed his help. I *could* have driven the Benz and the truck myself, and suited up when I got to the warehouses... "  
  
"I agree with Nene," put in Priss unexpectedly. "She says he's OK. Let it go." She made to stand up then grimaced at the pain from her ankle and abandoned the attempt, contenting herself with an expressive hand movement instead. "I admit I wasn't sure of you at first, Toshi - no offence, huh? - but I'm convinced. You could easily have abandoned Nene down there, but you waited for her even though you didn't know whether a boomer would suddenly come jumping out of the dark at you." She glanced sideways at Sylia, a crooked grin on her face, then turned back to Toshi. "Welcome aboard… "  
  
Sylia sighed. "Linna? As this is apparently now a democracy... "  
  
Linna smiled uneasily. "I liked Toshi from the start," she said. "And I agree with Priss - if Nene says he's OK, that's enough for me. I trust her judgement."  
  
Toshi had been looking from speaker to speaker during the discussion, his face betraying his growing unease. "Excuse me," he said finally. "Can I say something now?"  
  
Sylia sighed again and looked at the couple sitting together on the sofa. Nene still had hold of Toshi's hand; she did not look happy, and Sylia had a sudden premonition that the little redhead suspected what her partner was about to say - and that she did not like it.  
  
"I'm flattered that you want me," said Toshi finally, "but there's no way I'm going to start wearing armour and fighting boomers. You couldn't pay me enough to do that." He looked at the assembled Knight Sabers and shook his head in consternation. "I know you're good at what you do, but the *risks* you run... it's not for me." He turned to face Nene. "I understand why you had to do what you did tonight, and knowing you I think I can understand why you joined the team in the first place. I'd even understand if you wanted to *stay* in the team... "  
  
Nene shook her head; she looked as though she was about to burst into tears. Priss glowered at both of them impartially; Linna looked sadly at Nene and said nothing.  
  
"I understand, Kamazawa-san," said Sylia into the miserable silence that followed. "But whatever Priss, Linna and Nene might think, I certainly have no intention of offering to put you in a hardsuit - " She broke off as Priss started to say something and quelled the singer with a brusque wave of her hand. Priss subsided, dismay now on her face.  
  
"Your background is in engineering, hardware, computer systems... " She smiled. "I think I have something more suited to you than piloting a hardsuit. My... mechanic... is getting on in years; he's looking to retire soon." She smiled. "He's been talking lately about a round-the-world cruise... I had hoped that Mackie would take over, but now *he* seems to have developed - " she grimaced " - other interests - "  
  
Priss grinned and pumped her fist in the air. "Hubba hubba Mackie!"  
  
Sylia glared at her; Priss smirked back, unrepentant, as the others laughed. "Thank you... " She turned her attention back to Toshi - and to Nene, who had a suddenly hopeful look on her face. "Would you be interested in taking over our engineering support facility?" She concentrated her gaze on Toshi. "Provided both you and Nene intend to remain in MegaTokyo, of course."   
  
"Toshi?" Nene turned to face him squarely, eyes hopeful.  
  
Sylia looked at Nene. "And what about you, Nene? Do you intend to remain in the Knight Sabers?"  
  
Toshi stood, pulling Nene to her feet as he rose. "Can you give us a moment, Sylia?  
  
Sylia nodded. "Certainly. I assumed that you'd want to discuss this between yourselves before giving me your answer... Come back when you're ready."  
  
They left the room and walked down to the guest suite. Nene's face was pale; the state of her emotions was only too obvious.  
  
"Toshi, I - "  
  
He raised his hand and touched a finger to her lips, then took both her hands in his. "The Knight Sabers really mean a lot to you, don't they?"  
  
"More than I ever realised," she admitted. "They're *family* - like you are." She paused, searching for the right words. "The last nine months have been wonderful, but... I've realised there was something missing... I suppose I just had to remember *why* I joined the Knight Sabers in the first place."  
  
"Why *did* you join them?" he asked. "I know I said back there that I understood, but... "  
  
"I wanted to help people," she said. "That's why I joined the ADPolice, but it didn't take long for me to see that they're hopelessly outclassed most of the time. The Sylia offered me a way to... well, to 'make a difference', I suppose... "  
  
"I can understand that, love. And maybe... " He looked into her shining eyes; the eyes that had captured him, heart and soul, the first time he looked into them. "Maybe I'd like to give this a go... "  
  
"Toshi!" Nene fairly squealed with joy and flung her arms round his neck. He chuckled at her reaction, then bent his head to kiss her.  
  
Finally they drew apart. Nene's face was radiant, her eyes sparkling in a way that made his breath catch in his throat. He kissed her again for good measure, then whispered, "Shall we go tell the others?"  
  
"Oh, yes!" Nene opened the door; they walked back up the hall hand-in-hand, just as they had done when they had first arrived, less than 12 hours before. They reached the double doors at the end and Nene pushed them open with a flourish; three concerned faces looked back at them.  
  
"We're in, Sylia, both of us. All the way... "  
  
- Fin - 


End file.
